Sneaker Wave group exhibition
On view: March 1 - May 20, 2023
Preview Reception: Friday, March 31, 4:00-6:30
Opening reception: Sunday, April 2, 1:00-4:00 PM
Half Moon Bay is known for “sneaker waves,” potentially deadly waves that suddenly surge much farther up the beach than expected, overtaking the unaware. In M Stark Gallery’s second exhibition, Sneaker Wave, twenty Bay Area artists share work that responds to our changing environment in unexpected ways, consciously and unconsciously, without a traditional “landscape” in sight. Sneaker Wave serves to introduce the M Stark Gallery broader aesthetic to Half Moon Bay and beyond.
Jerry Ross Barrish
Climate Change Denier, 2021
assemblage found materials
53 x 17.5 x 19 inches
$5,000
Jerry Ross Barrish applies his deft hand to the cast offs of our materialistic consumer society to tell immutable tales of love and loss. Both humble and exquisite, even his compositions of inanimate objects are imbued with personality. Each element of these plastic junk assemblage sculptures is placed in a way that perfectly expresses the universal language of gesture. Humor, pathos, and hubris abound. See more available work by Barrish at mstarkgallery.com/jerryrossbarrish.
Mariet Braakman (1944-2021)
No Boundaries #10, 2015
acrylic & ink on canvas
40 x 20 inches
$4,000
Courtesy of the Estate of Mariet Braakman
Mariet Braakman was indelibly influenced by the places she lived. Growing up in The Netherlands, known for its low-lying and remarkably flat geography, Braakman became intrigued by mountainous landscapes from an early age. Her imaginary landscapes are inspired by authentic vistas, sometimes deconstructed or abstracted. Her work evokes the majesty of the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and the visceral graphic quality of land art. Her dramatic color palette reminds us the earth is alive and survives cycles of drought, seismic shock, and wildfire continually. Mariet’s compositions can be read as topographical maps, vistas, or biographical symbolism. Braakman’s work was consistently recognized by influential Bay Area curators in the last decade of her life.
Squeak Carnwath
Big Tiny, 2008
oil and alkyd on canvas over panel
75 x 65 inches
$46,000
Courtesy of Jane Lombard Gallery, New York
Squeak Carnwath is an internationally recognized artist known for colorful dreamlike paintings embedded with words and symbols. Her cautionary statements urge us to be honest with ourselves about our shortcomings and responsibilities to others. The origins of her messages come from her own internal dialogue as well as a lifetime of observing others. Carnwath received her MFA from California College of Arts and Crafts. She is Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley
Lisa Carroll
Time Cycles (golden), 2022
acrylic paint on clayboard
8 x 8 inches
$1,200
Lisa Carroll makes quiet, nonrepresentational paintings and drawings with acrylic paint, ink, and collage. Distillations of ephemeral experiences with the more than human world, the work is grounded in formal concerns with color, space, composition, and form. The Time Cycle series came about during the lockdown days when she developed a deeper intimacy with her immediate surroundings and noticing color relationships. Her paintings are a response to the sensorial and intellectual information she takes in and an attempt to conjure a glimpse of the layers of mind. Carrol received her MFA from Stanford University and teaches studio art at San Francisco University High School. Carroll lives and works in Oakland.
DeWitt Cheng
Devil’s Slide Bunker, Montara, CA, 2017
photograph
16.25 x 24 inches
(22.25 x 30.25 inches framed)
$350 - SOLD
DeWitt Cheng is a street photographer who carries his camera wherever he goes to capture nature, light, and urban life. He has a gift for identifying elements of the landscape that transcend from banal to emblematic when framed by his compositions. Cheng holds a BA in art history from Stanford University and an MFA from San Francisco State University.
Ethan Estess
Oshio no. 43, 2022
reclaimed fishing rope
24 inches diameter
$1,267 - SOLD
Ethan Estess uses upcycled nylon fishing rope, sourced directly from commercial fisheries, to bring attention to the problem of marine plastic pollution beyond consumer straws and plastic bags. He works in the tradition of assemblage sculpture, inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s groundbreaking introduction of objet truvet into the canon of art history, Robert Rauschenberg’s combines, and his mentor Terry Berlier’s practice. His beautifully colored seascapes are a magical second life for the colored rope, evoking Kanagawa’s Great Wave and 70s Op Art. Estess holds a BS and MS in earth systems from Stanford University, an interdisciplinary program that includes marine science, science communication, studio art, and mechanical engineering. Estess lives and works in Santa Cruz, CA.
Charles Forrester
Resonance: Raindrops, 2021
watercolor on paper
16 x 13 inches (framed)
$1,000 - SOLD
Kevan Jenson
Cacosmia, 2013
oil and smoke on panel
16 x 20 inches
$1,500
Kevan Jenson’s work invented his own paint technology featuring smoke, allowing him to build on the work of automatic Surrealists like André Masson. He endeavors to give viewers the opportunity to find their own imagery in his work via the fractal nature of the smoke he applies into the surface of his paintings. He believes that a trap door in our individual psyche opens to archetypal healing depths, and he strives to provide entrée to that transpersonal realm through his work. Jenson is also deeply influenced by Marcel Duchamp and his mentor, Harold Paris.
Amanda Klimek
Black/White, 2021
handbuilt ceramic with glaze and encaustic
11 x 14 x 10 inches
$1,200
Amanda Klimek's ceramic sculpture is highly original and experimental. Her fascination with the natural sciences is immediately apparent. The organic forms of her ceramic sculptures resemble conch shells or skulls split open, roiling waves, and all writhe with life. She has been known to make her own clay in order to achieve the right balance of strength and translucency. At the heart of it all she is very much a painter, as much of the experimentation in form and color push how light is bent, refracted, and absorbed—the opposite of traditional “glazed” clay. Klimek received her BFA summa cum laude from Pratt Institute and her MFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute. She lives and works in the Bayview District of San Francisco.
Prudy Kohler
La mer, le ciel, 2022
photo collage
16 x 20 inches
$500- SOLD
Photography forms the basis of Kohler’s work, especially alternate processes and combinations with other mediums. This collage of torn seascape images is like a delicate combination of tectonic plates that could rupture at any moment, reminding us how tenuous our place here is. Kohler received her BA in art history and studio art from Pomona College and her MA in art history from San Francisco State University.
Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang
Steampunk l, 2008
archival pigment print on Moab Entrada paper
21 x 17 inches
$1,000
Since 1999, Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang have been visiting Kehoe Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, rambling 1,000 meters of tideline of this one beach hundreds of times to gather over two tons of plastic debris. By carefully collecting and "curating" the found materials, they fashion it into works of art that matter-of-factly show, with minimal artifice, the material as it is. The Langs are active and invaluable contributors to the Bay Area’s creative community, including as the founders of Electric Works, fine art printers and exhibition gallery.
Dan Lythcott-Haims
Bottom Waves, 2019
Perforated steel, copper wire, with maple frame
13 x 13 inches
$650- SOLD
In Dan Lythcott-Haims’ assemblage sculpture, he elevates the stature of the old and broken through decontextualization, reducing his subjects down to their core. Often this means losing the context of location, environment, and even the subject itself. His works capture the beauty in decay. Lythcott-Haims earned his BS in product design from Stanford University.
Susan Abbot Martin
Penelope's Task: Part II (42), 2018
mixed media
10 x 10 inches
$1,000
Susan Abbot Martin is a conceptual artist who is known for using textiles and found objects in her practice. Her ideas for her work reside in memory and experience… a smell, a sight, an idea, a touch. She makes work to navigate towards an understanding of the outside. This piece is part of a series of found embroideries honoring the dreams and labor of the women who made them. Deconstructing the utility of the towels and moving them to the wall gives us the opportunity to re-examine and reflect on their value, and reminds us that we are all guests here. Martin received her BA from Holy Names College and her MFA from California College of Arts and Crafts.
Susan Parker
Line of Sight 1, 2022
acrylic on panel
20 x 20 inches
$2,500
Susan Parker’s contemplative, mysterious water paintings are mesmerizing thanks to a suggestion of surrealism. Her representations of movement and reflection can be naive and photorealist all at once. An experienced sailor with thirty years+ experience racing on the bay and a studio that looks out directly onto Islais Creek, Parker has the privilege of an intimate relationship with the sea. Each painting in waterseries shows a different side of her muse’s personality. Parker’s work as been acquired by the Crocker Art Museum, Monterey Museum of Art, and the Triton Museum of Art. She studied painting at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. See more available work by Parker at mstarkgallery.com/susanparker.
Sam Perry
The Game, 2012
wood
9 x 14 x 38 inches
$7,000
Courtesy of Rena Bransten Gallery
This piece is a departure from the practice Sam Perry is known for: totemic abstract geometric wood sculptures each carved from a single trunk that look bent, tied or twisted. He is also known for his witty polemical titles, here notwithstanding. This representational piece in the shape of a scale perfectly balances two similar yet unequal cohorts. Perry received his BFA and MFA from California College of Arts and Crafts.
Alejandro Rubio
Landscape Man 3, 2019
oil on canvas
24 x 24 inches
$2,000
Alejandro Rubio’s exuberant, vivid palette reveals his South American roots. His Landscape-Man series is a humorous and somewhat sinister commentary on global warming and human exploitation of our earth. Alejandro grew up under a military dictatorship in Uruguay in a family that deeply valued the arts, at a time when university arts programs were closed. After graduating from high school, he was able to study studio art fundamentals privately with a painter who followed the teachings of Uruguayan-Spanish master Joaquin Torres-Garcia, who is credited with bringing modernist painting from Spain to Uruguay in the 1930s. Alejandro became deeply inspired by modernism, and cites influences including Paul Klee, the Bauhaus, and Uruguayan painter Guillermo Fernandez, whom he subsequently trained with. Rubio lives and works in Oakland.
Elizabeth Sher
Smoke Screen (gold), 2020-2021
archival ink on aluminum
20 x 30 inches
$900
Elizabeth Sher’s art is an attempt to examine aspects of perception: what is seen, the interaction of sight and memory, the construction of narrative and how this process informs our understanding of the world. Smoke Screen (gold) is part of a series inspired by the Northern California wildfires of 2021: dense smoke, scary bright orange skies, and devastation. The air was unsafe to breathe, and visibility was very low. Sher says, “This, along with the same stories repeating endlessly all over the news, made it hard to see anything clearly in either place. The series Smoke Screens is my response to the lack of clarity on so many fronts.” Sher is an award-winning artist and filmmaker and Professor Emeritus of Art at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and Oakland, CA where she taught painting and media arts for over 3 decades.
Tabitha Soren
The Whip of a Whirlwind, 2018
archival pigment print
edition of 5
30 x 40 inches (34 x 44 framed)
$7,000
Tabitha Soren has a gift for seeing the anomalies in our environment and exploiting their beauty to manipulate our emotions. Her images are arresting, urgent, suspenseful, and haunting. Her background as a journalist influences us to initially see her work as documentary before our emotions are further heightened by operatic elements including dramatic light, dangerous terrain, cataclysmic weather, and vulnerable protagonists. The Whip of a Whirlwind is from Soren’s Panic Beach series, now permanently installed in the California Statehouse in Sacramento.
Margaret Timbrell
I'm considering defriending or at least unfollowing him (from the Autocorrect Fail series), 2018
vintage embroidery canvas, cotton silk thread
10 x 8 inches
$1,200
Margaret Timbrell is a conceptual needlework artist who uses the craft to reflect vulnerability, failure, and perseverance. Her work is inspired by various influences (such as technology, parenthood, perseverance, and failure) that alter language and engagement. Her inspiration varies from malaprop colloquialisms to the strangeness of “canned” form letters, or interesting linguistic or grammar patterns in our technology. She is constantly researching and learning about the different styles and histories of needlework to employ in her practice, creating work that can be appreciated both by a sophisticated stitcher and by the average viewer. Timbrell received her BA in science and studio art from New York University. Currently Timbrell is a Facility Artist at 1240 Minnesota Street Project, and Studio Artist at Pacific Felt Factory.